Question about Metal Halide Lighting

[twflint]

Greetings,
I just have a question about metal halide lighting. I just bought 2 10000k 175w bulbs, running on 2 seperate 175W m57 ballasts.
I understand MH lights have a warm up time, when I plugged them in the first time both came on instantly then went out for about 1 minute or so. The left bulb then came back on and the intensity has gone up alot. The right bulb did NOT come on after about 15 minutes. I unplugged both lights and checked the power, connections, made sure bulbs all the way in and such.
Turned them on again, both bulbs lit immediatly, the left bulb slowly gained intensity and is lit, the right bulb though once again went out after about 15 seconds and has not re-lit.
What is going on here? What should I be checking, bulb, connector, ballast?
Thanks much for your help
Troy Flint

 

[richard rendos]

What type of bulbs and ballasts are they? Some ballasts have a hard time firing some bulbs. Another thing you could do to check, is to swap the bulbs to the other socket and see if they fire then. If the bulb that fired does not fire in the other socket, you could have a bad or weak ballast, or a wiring problem. If it does fire then check the other one.
If the ballast and bulb don't work well together, you may have to try firing the one that doesn't stay on several times. The starting voltage may not be enough, but a lot of times after you get it to fire and stay on once...from then on it won't be a problem.
I have a 175 watt Ushio 10K bulb that wouldn't fire up immediately with my "Advance" ballast, but I tried it over and over again until it finally lit up and stayed on....since then it fires up and stays on every time.

 

[twflint]

Thanks for the reply,
Looks like that one side just takes a bit longer to come up. After posting this message I went back and the bulb was on. Weird.
When I was adding my timer I had to unplug both lights, once again it took a while for the right side to come back on, but only about 5 mins this time. Guess I will just deal with the few minutes that it takes to warm up.
Thanks again,
Troy